Tara Gignac - The Practitioner’s Journey: The Path to Success for Holistic, Alternative and Integrative Health Professionals

Dan Clements & Tara Gignac, ND

Copyright 2010 by Dan Clements and Tara Gignac. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproducedmechanically, electronically or by any other means including photocopyingwithout written permission of the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Clements, Dan, 1968-

The practitioner's journey / Dan Clements, Tara Gignac.

ISBN 978-0-9739782-4-7

1. Alternative medicine--Practice. 2. Customer relations.

I. Gignac, Tara, 1971- II. Title.

R733.C54 2010 615.5068 C2010-902217-3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

The path to Success

-9

Part I: The Cave

Solving the mystery of why practices fail

-17

Part II: The River

Attracting new clients

-77

Part III: The Boulder

Getting the most from your client base

-133

Part IV: The Valley

Finding balance and building a sustainable career

-185

Epilogue

The summit

-255

Afterword

Love, life and legacy in health care

-259

Never accept the idea that, because you are in business, you dont have the opportunity or time or personal qualities which a true spiritual life demands, or that maintaining a deep inner life is somehow contradictory with leading a business career. The wisdom of The Diamond Cutter says that the very people who are attracted to business are exactly the same ones who have the inner strength to grasp and carry out the deeper practices of the spirit.
-Geshe Michael Roach The Diamond Cutter

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

In this book we use a number of terms interchangeably. Thats partly for convenience, but mainly because theres no generally accepted way of referring to the practitioners and consumers of the alternative health industry.

To describe the diverse industry we work in, we use the terms alternative , holistic, integrative, and complementary as they best suit the flow of the book, most often settling for CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) as a catchphrase for all.

You might think of yourself as a therapist, a doctor, a healer, a practitioner, a coach or a counselor. You may own a practice, a business, or a clinic. You might work with clients, patients, or customers. Regardless of what language you use, this book will help you do what you do better.

In short, lets start by doing what great health care professionals have always done: forget about the labels and focus on whats inside instead.

And as for the people described in The Practitioners Journey ? Theyre all real. Just like you.

INTRODUCTION

The Path to Success

Many roads lead to the path, but basically there are only two: reason and practice. -Bodhidharma

If youre like most practitioners , your current practice is likely to take you to one of three places in the long run.

The first place is the scariest. Its called No Longer Practicing, and it comes as a result of just not being able to make it. After a few years of struggle, you still dont have enough clients to pay the bills and pay yourself, so you pack it in. Its a sad outcome, but sadder still is the fact that its not that uncommonin some CAM professions, its rumored that as many as 50% of practitioners are no longer practicing within a few years.

The second place is called Getting By, and its not nearly as scary, but its not that great either. Practitioners in this category manage to find enough clients to get by, but they just get by. They feel like their practice sucks up all their cash, and they never really find financial freedom. They pay themselves when they can, but its unpredictable. Cash on hand at the end of each month is usually zero, or a little less. Debt slowly creeps up. Enjoying work is a distant memory. Work and life are a constant struggle with little payback.

If that doesnt seem terribly enticing either, then consider the third possible destination: Burnout. Its a place of deception because on the surface it seems like a good spot to be. You have plenty of clients, a jam-packed schedule, and cash pouring in. The hidden dark side of this place, though, is the long hours, the deterioration of health and relationships, and, surprisingly, the continued financial struggle. After all, lots of cash doesnt necessarily mean lots of wealth, and many of these super practitioners are in just as much financial trouble as those who are Getting By. Burnout, it turns out, is simply a longer and more expensive route to No Longer Practicing.

There is good news, however. As of right now youre not like most practitioners. In discovering this book, youve just taken the first steps on a path toward an entirely different destination.

This destination is one that weve all heard of. Its called Success, but for all the legend surrounding it, few practitioners seem to find their way there. Its the Shangri-La of practicea mysterious place where life is the way you imagined it before things got in the way.

Some pay a brief visit to Success on their way to Burnout, but they dont seem to be able to settle there for long. But we do hear the stories of those who have found their way, and those stories circulate through our professions in whispered tones at conferences, schools, and lunch dates. They are stories of a place where you find joy in your work. Where, in fact, you cant wait to get to work each day. Where you have the money you need. Where you work as much as you choose to work, but you love every minute of it. Success is the practice we dream of as students and covet as practitioners. Its a place where you help others find health and are healthy yourself.

The job of this book is to show you the way there.

Trouble on the Path to Success

By far the most extraordinary thing about Success is that so few practitioners actually find their way there. After all, a good look at our current state of health suggests that by all accounts, it should be a remarkable time to be in the healing professions.

Our aging population, deteriorating environment, and dangerous lifestyle habits are combining to create a tidal wave of chronic and acute illness the likes of which the world has never seen. To ride out the tide of this sickness tsunami, were relying on an overloaded medical system that lacks the resources and philosophy necessary to cope. The result is a crisis of health, and a crisis of health care , thats driving people to seek alternatives.

Those alternatives are you and your colleagues: the chiropractors, acupuncturists, nutritionists, ayurvedic practitioners, massage therapists, naturopaths, and thousands of other holistic and alternative professionals out there. Youre the life raft, and people should be climbing over each other to get on board.

Yet practitioners still struggle. On one side, weve got a market with a seemingly bottomless demand and desperate need. On the other, weve got practitioners barely getting by, or going out of business altogether. Whats wrong?

After nearly a decade of running our health care business and teaching others to do the same thing, weve learned one critical thing: all practitioners face the same challenges. Whether youre a homeopath, a herbalist, a massage therapist, or a naturopath, the barriers to reaching Success are the same. Chiropractors, osteopaths, energy practitioners, and acupuncturiststhey all face the same hurdles. There are four challenges on the path to Success, and theyre common to every holistic, alternative, or complementary practitioner. Each challenge threatens to move practitioners off the path and send them wandering toward Burnout, Getting By, or No Longer Practicing.

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